Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
April 12, 2009
John 20:1-18

Unwrapped for Resurrection

When did you hear your first Easter sermon?  Last year?  Many years ago?  As a little girl, I remember Easter hats, a new spring suit, and having to arrive at church early in order to find a seat in the sanctuary.

But my first Easter sermon?  One when my mind and heart were present, not just my body?  I began paying attention for real probably around confirmation age, a young teenager.  And I remember being disappointed.  Preachers seemed to skirt this business of resurrection, and I wanted the facts, just the facts, thank you very much.  As children, we’re really quite literal.  I wanted to know whether Jesus really rose from the dead – or not.  I wanted science to explain this miracle – or explain it away.  But now I have white hair – and I have suffered some wounds and experienced some miracles over the years – and I have a deeper appreciation of the meaning of resurrection. 

We have just read John’s account of the resurrection story – except that it’s not about resurrection.  It’s an empty tomb story.  Mary Magdalene has come to the tomb, before dawn, with other Galilean women who have been traveling with Jesus. They have come to anoint his body, the custom after the death of a loved one – one last loving touch.  But Jesus is gone!   Panic sets in.  Where IS he?  Have they gone to the wrong tomb?  Or has his body been moved to another tomb?  Even worse, stolen? 

Mary runs to get Peter.  We can imagine her, breathless, “Help us find him!”  Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved come running.  They enter the tomb, but all they find is the big empty – except for what Jesus has left behind....  Grave robbers would not have taken the time to unwrap the body.  Not stolen, then!  What could have happened?  The linen that had wrapped Jesus’ body is lying there by itself and the strips that had bound his head.

Is there a theological significance?  You bet!  The burial cloths are lying discarded in the tomb because Jesus has left death behind.  Jesus had to be unwrapped to be resurrected!  The message?  The stone must be rolled away; the cloth that binds, unwound in order for one to defeat death.

We see the natural world being unwrapped in the spring – a time of physical rebirth for the earth:  The hard red shell of the bud – unchanging through the winter – swells and splits and soft green petals can be seen inside.  A baby chick pecks away at the shell that entombs her until it cracks.  A butterfly wriggles free of it’s silky cocoon.

Whether or not we have ever heard an Easter sermon, whether or not we might call ourselves “Christian,” all of us experience a season of rebirth, a time of renewal.  For those of us who do call ourselves “Christian,” the presence of the church in our lives means that we have a framework, a language, a way to talk  about personal and spiritual growth, a way to understand the mystery and sacredness of life.

Look at the metaphor of binding and unbinding from a spiritual perspective:  The symbolism of the grave cloths in the Easter gospel accounts is important.  But it’s not the only place where it appears.  This “unwrapping” theme can be found in other texts as well.  Remember Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, who has been dead for four days before Jesus arrives.  The burying and the weeping are over.  Jesus is too late.  Jesus, the one who believes that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy, “…to proclaim release to the captives…to let the oppressed go free,” orders, “Take the stone away” and calls, “Lazarus, come out.”  Lazarus does as he is told, but he is all wrapped up.  “Unbind him, let him go free,” Jesus commands the crowd.

We have felt the movement from winter into spring, from darkness into light, from death to resurrection.  For there is – in each of us – something … that digs its fingernails into the shrouds of our own makings, that strains against the rock that entombs us.  We think the Easter story is an account of an event that happened on a hill far away, 2000 year ago.  But Easter is a story about you and me, and rolling away the stones in our own lives, and unwrapping the guilt and sin that bind us so that we can breathe freely and really live. 

Easter is a story about unwinding the strips of sorrow, peeling away the layers of anger, loosening the grip of fear, so that we can be free – free of addictions, free of destructive behaviors, free of negative attitudes – free of everything that binds us and walls us up in the tombs of our own making.  It’s easy to roll the stone in place, but it’s hard to roll it away.  Often it’s lots of little stones piled up one at a time – more like a stone wall.

And we’re all in need of unwrapping and resurrection.  Jesus tells us that he has come that we may have life and have it abundantly.  And he demonstrates new life by example.  Imagine how he is wounded – the nails in his hands – the spear in his side.  Imagine his disappointment in the religious establishment that has orchestrated his execution.  Imagine his loneliness when his disciples run and hide to save themselves.  Imagine his sorrow when Simon Peter, the one he counts on to build his church, denies him.  We know what it is like to be ignored and misunderstood and betrayed, don’t we?

So, what does Jesus, whom we call divine, do in the face of such adversity?  Does he stay locked in the tomb?  No!  He rises above tribulation, and suffering, and evil.  That’s what Easter is all about.   He and all the powers of heaven and earth unwrap the grave cloths and roll back the stone.  Jesus brings his woundedness out into the sunlight.  He acknowledges and accepts his hurt and in so doing is able to transform it and use it for good.  The way to become enlightened is not to dwell in the light but to carry the light into our own darkness.  “O, death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?”

Jesus’ story does not end with the crucifixion.  Last weekend when we were rehearsing the passion play, Megan asked, “This is a sad ending.  Why is there no happy ending?”  I told her that she would have to wait until this week for the happy ending!  In fact, without the happy ending, we would not even know of Jesus:  he would have been long forgotten.

But the happy ending does not occur at the tomb.  Only because Mary stays at the tomb, weeping, after Peter has run back to bed, do we have an inkling of a happy ending.  She stoops to look in the tomb and sees two angels sitting there.  Where did they come from?  And then Jesus appears to her, looking like the gardener.  When he speaks her name, she recognizes him and reaches for him.  Don’t touch me!  I have not yet ascended....  He sends her off with a message for the disciples. 

What happened at the tomb?  We don’t know.  Had it been a struggle to work his way out of the grave cloths?  There is no videotape of a resurrection.  No public factual account.             No witnesses to the actual event.  Jesus is in the tomb one day – and gone the next. 

Yet, he’s not gone, he’s everywhere.  After the resurrection, Jesus appears to the disciples in Jerusalem, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” he says to them.  “Look at my hands and feet; see that it is I myself.  Touch me and see;…”  And he showed them the wounds that the nails had left in his hands and his feet and asks if they have anything to eat.  And they find him on the road to Emmaus and cooking for the disciples on the beach when they have gone back to fishing.

What do you suppose the empty tomb means?   This is the real question, not how did it happen:  Is the resurrection a spectacular miracle, a demonstration of the power of God?  Is it proof that Jesus is God’s son?  A chance for Jesus to say, “I told you so?”  Is it the promise of an afterlife?  When we get hung up on the scientific facts – or the lack of them – we miss the meaning of the resurrection.

And the meaning is the same for us as it was for Jesus’ followers.  This is the important part, the part that removes the distance between the first Easter and ours.  For Jesus’ followers continued to experience Jesus in their lives.  They knew him in the present, not just in the past.  It was not their belief in the resurrection that mattered – but the real presence of the living Christ in their lives.

The resurrection also means that, while Jesus is executed by Rome, he is vindicated by God.  “Easter is God’s ‘yes’ to Jesus and God’s ‘no’ to the powers that killed him.  Easter means “Jesus lives” and “Jesus is Lord,”  just as we have been proclaiming today.1

What hinders our understanding of this reality is that Jesus is fully human in a way that we are not:  He was able to be unwrapped.  He was able to embrace the dark side of temptation, the pain of rejection, the despair over what looked like failure, and rise above it. 

This little girl who wanted answers has come closer to understanding the answer:  The miracle of resurrection is this:  For resurrection we have been created.  But first, we have to be unwrapped.  From what, you might ask?  Ask yourself these three questions:  (1)  What people or things do we hold onto that we should let go?  (2)  What are we clinging to that does not bring us life?  (3)  What has to be unwrapped in us in order for the Resurrection to begin?

For most of us it will be a struggle to work our way out of the grave cloths.  But that’s what new life in Christ is all about!  We are called to be God’s resurrection people?

May it be so!  Amen.

1. Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, pp. 274.